catwalk alternative chapter

Sassy alleycats or fierce high school students? You decide which characters work best for Catwalk!

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Originally I devised Catwalk to be about five desperate alleycats — Pashmina Purrstein, Angora Le Bon, Felinez Cartera, Aphro Biggie Bright, and Elgamela Sphinx — who turn into supermodels after stepping into a pair of discarded Manolos in the trash can. My editor at Random House thought this was way too far-out, so I turned my scrappy cats into desperate girls who are ready to rip the runway by any means necessary. I think they're just as ambitious as the alley cats, just less furry. Check it out!

"Some cats may have nine lives, but these five glamour-pusses really know how to milk it..."

Chapter one

Sometimes I take a catnap just so I can dream that I'm prancing around town in a fuzzy pink sweater set and Shimmy Choo shoes — you know the adorable pink lizard ones with the pointy toes and kitten heels? I walk for miles all the way up First Avenue to the Pink Poodle Diner on 77th Street on the Upper East Side. The cute counter girl wearing a pink apron decorated with a fuzzy pink poodle appliqué smiles at me because I'm famous. Breathlessly, she asks, "What can I get for your today, Miss Pashmina Purrstein?"

I take ONE BIG FACE (a hundred dollar bill) from my pink leather meowch pouch dangling on a leather drawstring cord around my neck and tell her that I want to buy a can of Pink Poodle Caviar, Cracked Pepper Saltines, and five Mocha Latte Grandes. Then I head back to meet my posse so we can have a purr-fect party and celebrate how special we are. That's the part where I usually wake up disappointed because I realize that we're just a bunch of homeless alley cats living in a crummy abandoned building off Avenue C — hungry, frightened, and definitely shoeless. Wish I could catnap forever. I mean, how come Dorothy gets to click her heels and we don't?

As usual, whenever I'm in my daydreaming daze, I always crash back to reality.

"Shout out to Pashmina!" Aphro says chirpily, nudging me back to reality as we saunter up Avenue C to Tompkins Square Park, where we take our late-afternoon bath in the water fountains, then perch on the mossy green lawns and cold granite boulders to dry if the weather is groovy. "Shimmy Choo is calling you — again?" asks Aphro, pressing me for daydreaming details.

After being in a posse with me for six months, Aphro knows me all too well and that's swell. I throw her a set of the "squinties" — something I do when I'm not having it, and Aphro quickly adds in that fabbie purr of hers, "Just wish you'd take us with you when you go to the groovy galaxy in your mind, that's all."

"Oy vey, without a payday. You clocked it right, Aphro Biggie Bright! I'm so hungry I'm getting lost in my sauce," I groan, rubbing my tummy with my paw and fantasizing about rich creamy gravy covering five crispy pork chops.

See we haven't eaten since last night and, believe me, I don't miss a "happy meal" unless I have a good reason. Today is the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur and we're supposed to fast until sundown, which can't come fast enough, okay? See, my mom is Jewish so I celebrate all the Jewish holidays. My dad is Black so I also celebrate Christmas and Kwanzaa too. But now that I've got my posse celebrating Yom Kippur with me, we're all a little stumped about the day of atonement part. See, while we're fasting, we're supposed to be reflecting on our sins. That's kinda hard since our only sin seems to be the hard fact that we haven't found a warm, cozy, soft home yet in the Big Apple.

"Oy, my big schnozz is whiffing and sniffing today, okay," I groan some more until my tail hits the rough pavement.
"Pash, your nose is not big — it's your best feature," Aphro assures me. She is the most exotic in our posse, so I appreciate her blowing up my fur. What I would give for her brown glistening fur and those smoky dark eyes.

"I know that's right, but here comes someone who does have a muzzle that could guzzle the Grand Canyon!" groans Felinez in disgust as one of our neighborhood pain-in-the-tush approaches.

But even before I catch sight of Sir Poop-A-Lot barreling down Avenue C in our direction, I know it is going to be a sniffy day. Well, more sniffy than usual. See, here in Alphabet City the wacko combo of smells seeping out from all the stores, restaurants and tenement buildings crammed too close together could cause even a feisty feline such as myself to fall over into one of the Panda Bear-sized manholes.

I'm not kvetching: Take a trip to this nose-torious section of the Big Apple and you'll be treated to an outdoor odorama fest that stretches north from Houston Street to 14th Street and east of First Avenue to Avenue D. Some of the odors "traveling in the air like they just don't care" are: Ducky Fang's Chow Mein, Hurry Curry's Lamb Vindaloo, BBQ Hut's Fried Chicken Wings and Honey-Dipped Ribs — along with Tarantula Turpentine and Cleaner Fluid from Wong Foo's Chinese Laundry, Dopey Soap Detergent suds and Bugsy Bleach coming out of the Spin Cycle Laundromat and all the yucky stuff jam-crammed in the overflowing garbage cans lined up the sidewalks.

But make no mistake, Sir Poop-A-Lot provides a giganto contribution to the hood's smelly cause. I exaggerate not: Right now, our least favorite English bulldog — with flews hanging so thickly over his lower jaws that he could use them as airplane flaps for takeoff — has the nerve to stop right in front of the five of us. Then he squats squarely on his Polish sausage-thick forelegs and outward-turned pudgy feet, and drops a giganto, steaming hot pile, well, worthy of his nickname, right on the sidewalk!
"Ay Dios Mio! There is no shame in your game!" hisses Felinez, before leaping into the landing below Ducky Fang's cement stairwell.

"Oy, your stench is truly tenacious. Do you think you could curb it next time?" Felinez and I cross paws on that snap because we have officially checked Your Hiney-ness. See, Sir Poop-A-Lot's other annoying habit is bragging about his English heritage. He claims he was bestowed with the moniker "Gentleman George" in honor of the hoity-toity British breeder Bill George. Supposedly, Mr. Bill was responsible for transforming Sir Poop-A-Lot's breed from pit dogs into show ring dogs when bull baiting became illegal in Great Britain back in the petticoat-horse-and-carriage days. "My breed was truly superior," Sir Poop-A-Lot once bragged to us, laying on that phony English bark. "Once we sunk our jaws into a bloody bull, he took a licking while we kept on ticking!"

It sounded like a lot of "bull" all right — and not the kind involving "Toro, toro!" and mad matadors in embroidered red capes either. But behind his puffy posturing — like when he doesn't even know we're watching him — Sir Poop-A-Lot does seem sad, like he doesn't quite know what to sink his snarky teeth into next. Maybe he's not full of hot air after all. He probably just has a ferocious flow of bad gas from sitting on his giganto tush all day doing nothing and feeling sorry for himself.

"Oh, stash it, Pash. I told you to call me by my real name!" barks Sir Poop-A-Lot, using my nickname."Get back to your litter box before I put a craw in your paw!"

"Pashmina, do be a doll and don't aggravate him anymore," Angora whispers to me, frightened to death of yet another showdown. Angora is very sensitive — and totally allergic to cheap acrylic sweaters, drinking tap water and confrontations — courtesy of her Baton Rouge breeding. Now, Angora never talks about her impeccable pedigree, but she is a purebred Persian with batty lashes, blue eyes, and white luxurious long-haired fur that rivals the softness of the white marabou-feathered boas she loves to fling around her neck. The princess of fling would rather purr like a phony than lash out at anyone, cruel or otherwise. "I do wish we had a litter box," she laments, "then we wouldn't be subjected to this terrible treatment."

Obviously Sir Poop-A-Lot knows we don't have a litter box because we're homeless, but this is his way of squashing the noise. In other words, making us feel small because we're alley cats, but still far more faboo and furry than he'll ever be.
"Who cares what your real name is!" pipes up Aphro. Sir Poop-A-Lot is especially mean to Aphro because she's brown, and Aphro is especially sensitive about being brown. Puma was born in the Edenwald Projects in the Boogie Down, but she was abandoned by her mother. So she headed to Manny Hanny (aka Manhattan) by her lonesome. Like the rest of our posse, she is determined to make her dreams come true — one licked paw at a time. Luckily for me, I spotted her fiercenesss crouched right below the road sign "Believe the Hype!" at the Manhattan-bound lane of the Williamsburg Bridge. I had just come from bidding my Mom "so long, see ya!" and sending her on her way to Miami to retire. Aphro Biggie Bright really stopped me in my tracks. First, I was worried that she was contemplating taking her life by jumping off the Williamsburg Bridge or something, but the second our eyes locked, I could see the feistiness that lay within and realized that she was simply like me — way too fierce for most people to comprehend. I was right. It turns out Aphro was at a crossroads in her life too. She was crouched by the entrance simply trying to figure out her game plan. That's when I first got hip to Aphro's sensitivity. I mean, I'm light brown, but like that stupid saying goes, "If you're black, jump back. If you're brown, stick around. If you're yellow, you're mellow. If you're white, you're alright."

I'd heard that saying since I was a kitten, so I knew that darker cats had it even harder than I did. Anyway, Aphro was trying to make up her mind if she should go to Manhattan, or head to Brooklyn because she might blend in better there. Well, I talked the mighty Aphrodite into crossing the bridge with me to Alphabet City because Ducky Fang's was serving up the best throw-aways of Moo Shu Pork Pancakes and Moo Goo Gai Pan at the end of each evening. Aphro dug my sense of humor and I think my determination rubbed off on her too. She'd never met a half-Jewish, half-Black feline before. She chuckled while I told her how I got hooked on tasty Chinese delicacies while living with Mrs. Pritchard and my Mom in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Aside from Moo Goo, soul food is also my salvation. I will tear up some BBQ ribs and ask questions later, okay.

Unfortunately, now all of our favorite dishes have also become Sir Poop-A-Lot's cuisines of choice — judging from how many times he has raided our stash over the past six months. Our main and humble abode is an abandoned building on Third Street between Avenue C and Avenue D. Our uninvited guest's snide remarks also make me realize that he is not pushing away from our dinner table anytime soon.
"I bet you'll remember my name later when I stop by to pick up my grub, you uppity black festering mothball!" snipes Sir Poop-A-Lot, glaring at Aphro intensely.
"No, he didn't," snarls Elgamela, sucking her teeth and rolling her eyes like she's testifying. "I'm the one you should be calling uppity because I will go up side your muzzle the next time you try to dis us!"

Judging by his half-raised eyebrow, Sir Poop-A-Lot is smart enough to comprehend Elgamela's out-thereness. She is not to be played with. Raised in the basement of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, Elgamela Sphinx can trace the origin of her big mouth all the way back to the corner of 135th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. She can also trace her regal heritage back to a crumbly pyramid in ancient Egypt. "You'd better get your grub on somewhere else," warns Elgamela. "As a matter of facto, I suggest you spend the night sucking on some Tums to remedy that gas situation!"

See, for all of Sir Poop-A-Lot's clatter about British breeding and the pecking order of the urban jungle, he is just a lazy, sticky-fingered bulldog — preying on a bunch of felines. We are so tired of spending all night foraging for fresh goodies just so he can get his flews flopping on our hefty pickings.

"Why would you want to join us for dinner anyway?" I snarl, taking charge of the situation so we can stop wasting precious daylight hours. "Isn't the Queen of England inviting you over later for a spot of tea?"

"I said, stash it Pash!" Sir Poop-A-Lot reiterates menacingly. He leans forward to fix his fuzzy-eyed glare upon us. I can tell he is studying us like little white mice trapped in a maze. One thing is for sure, he knows better than to pounce on us. Sure, his ancestors may have ruled the ring by hanging onto dimwitted bulls, but we are definitely faster on our feet than he'll ever be.

Luckily for us, a bunch of rowdy neighborhood boys come to our rescue. Well, not exactly. All of a sudden, Frito Palmieri, the neighborhood stickball king and his bat-happy crony — Mousaka — come charging out of Frito's apartment right above Ducky Fang's. Also in tow, the uncoordinated twin brothers, Dinky and Winky.

Leaping off the steep set of stairs in front of his building, Frito screams, "Whoa, Nelly," then lands like a paratrooper feet first on the sidewalk, wobbling to get his balance before he notices Sir Poop's smelly pile and points to it, riffing: "Mouse Ca Ca — is that yours?"

Dinky and Winky give each other a high five over the snap while Mousaka starts talking with his hands flexed like a rapper. "That's foul, man — messing up my name like that, yo," he snarls, squinting his black olive eyes. "I swear that bulldog got fart-it, yo!"

We snicker at Mousaka's accurate observation. Of course, Sir Poop pretends he doesn't comprehend. But when he turns away from the rowdy boys and gives us the fuzzy glare again, I can tell he heard all right and is just flossing to hold his ground.

"Wazzup dog, you gonna play or what?'' Frito barks at Mousaka, tapping his stickball impatiently on the pavement. Rat. Tat. Tat. Tat. Tat.

"I'm not a dog cuz I don't walk on four legs and bark, but I will definitely bite," Mousaka growls at Frito, the leader of his crew, even though he will probably pay for it later.

"Well, bring it on then," orders Frito.

Winky and Dinky charge into the street like they've got game but everybody knows they are the worst stickball players on the block. Obviously the rest of Frito and Mousaka's crew must be doing something else — after all today is Yom Kippur and a lot of his crew are Jewish so they have to fast until sundown like us. That's why they're stuck playing with Winky and Dinky today. Usually, they're batting the twins around instead of the balls. But that's life in Alphabet City — there's always a game of top dog, underdog in play, if you catch my drift.

A small crowd of younger kids gather behind the barricades that Con Edison had set up to prevent vehicles from entering the block. The idle kids interfere, making noise, "Woof, woof!" Then they place bets with baseball cards and marbles. "I'm placing five on Frito!"

"It's about to get hectic," observes Aphro, alerting us to stand in position so we can make our speedy exit to Tompkins Square Park when the batting gets too wicked.

Winky hoists the bat between his legs and wipes his sweaty palms together.

"Check it, Winky. You can't score a home run without swinging the bat, yo!" Frito screams at him, hiking his super baggy pants up to his waist. After two strikes, a frustrated Winky finally cracks the bat and puts a spin on the ball that sends it in our direction. Pa-dow! The speeding ball hits Sir Poop-A-Lot smack on his muzzle!

Sir Poop is stunned. He shakes his head and wobbles around, tears welling in his droopy eyes from the impact of the blow. Angora winces. By protective instinct, I cover her eyes with my paws. "I think it's time for us to follow the bouncing ball and head over to the park," I say gently, motioning for us to skid-daddle.

Meanwhile, Sir Poop lowers his sore head and quickly high-tails it into the alleyway between Spin Cycle Laundromat and Dingo Bingo Parlor. But I'm sure that's not the last of him we'll see before the sun rises tomorrow morning.

We make a hasty exit, but not without notice. "What's the matter? Don't you scaredy cats want a few whacks on your pretty little tails?" yells Winky, his gravelly voice rising above the din of the crowd.
"Look who's flossing because he finally hit something!" Aphro says with a smirk.
"Dinky couldn't hit a home run if he had a third eye," adds Elgamela.

On that note, we scurry to our destination and settle on our favorite rock in the park — where we lick our paws and catch a few rays before sundown. All of a sudden I feel sorry for Sir Poop. "If he had a charming personality, he could have his own posse like we do."
"I don't think so, Pash. What happened to us — finding each other — is pure luck and don't you belittle it," Angora says wisely.
"I don't," I say, yawning.